How to promote a Big Launch (without becoming That Guy)

Right now, I’m seeing the repeat of a Big Industry Launch, and the backlash from people who are tired of being deluged by a flood of “Hey, You Should Totes Buy That Big Course Through My Affiliate Link” messages.

Nothing new there.

But Naomi Niles said this on FB: I’m sad about the noise. But, I’m sadder that some people are afraid of sharing their things because of it.

And that is something worth talking about.

There are two broad categories of affiliate promoters.

The Cha-Ching! crowd are there entirely to make money by selling something, and will use whatever techniques are effective in achieving that goal; including pressure tactics, artificial scarcity, emotional manipulation, and carpet-bomb communications.

The Believers are promoting an offering for reasons which are more important than the cash; because this offering changed their life, or because it addresses a problem they want to eliminate, or because they want to encourage the person behind it.

And only one of these two groups will actually listen to the backlash, and maybe decide not to promote. I bet you can guess which one this is.

Darlingheart, if you believe in something, for realsies, then you should fucking promote it.

Trust me, the people who are saying “ugh” about the deluge of buy-nows aren’t responding to you, or to people like you. They’re pissed about the screaming highlighter exclamation mark stalkerface soulless shove-y promotions.

They wouldn’t mind in the slightest hearing you talk about how you changed your life with this course. Or why you believe that courses like this are the future of X.

You have a secret weapon that the Cha-Ching! crowd can’t access. You’re sincere. As long as you stick with that, as long as you keep your non-monetary motivation clearly in mind and write it from the gut, you’ll do just fine.

I also started thinking about this more with the affiliate launch stuff going around. I feel that the annoyance leaks into what we do sometimes too though because some people are just very sensitive to any kind of launching anything. One time I got a snarky criticism from someone for launching a little thing on the same day as someone else’s big thing. Like I really planned that! lol

I thought about that too, but I pulled out some thoughts in order to write an article that wasn’t Five Miles Long.

Everything I said – as long as you are legit about wanting to promote something, yours or someone else’s, for reasons that serve other purposes than buying you a big TV – then no reasonable person will object. I make no promises about unreasonable persons, which is a whole different article that I may write tomorrow.

I don’t know – I’m hearing from people who received NINE emails in one day, from nine different affiliates, about the same thing. I’m not sure it would matter how sweetly or sincerely you are about promoting the thing, if yours is the ninth email I received about that thing today.

I want to agree that we should promote whatever we truly believe in, but in these cases it might be important to look if your people are already inundated and if this could possibly harm you (if they’re already annoyed that annoyance may transfer to you just because yours happens to be email #9). Maybe you don’t promote this one thing, or maybe you look at what everyone else is doing and come up with something way awesomer.

Shanna Mann

That’s a lot of overlap! Personally I have a few people that I prioritize opening, so if I’m getting 9 emails and one is Catherine’s, it’s hers I’m opening because, obviously, love letters rock.

The last launch I really remember that was terrible was the 72hr sale– but everyone had their stuff in there, so it was kind of understandable.

I totally agree with you on one point: it’s always worthwhile to take some time and think about whether this offering is the right way to serve people. But if you are legit, and you think that you could possibly serve some of your readers with an offering, I say its maybe worth the risk of being the Dreaded Number Nine.

Mostly I say this because the people who have the scruples that cause them to question this in the first place are the ones who are most likely to give in to the qualsm and leave the terrain wholly populated by the jerks. And I need the Believers!

As I consider whether I want to jump into the affiliate-ing fray or not, this is absolutely what I needed to read. Dear goodness, there are some things I believe in and that I think other people I know should also know about. Part of me feels like the Cha-Ching! crowd is the group that signs up to affiliate, and the Believers just tell their people without getting a cut. But I would like to be a Believer who GETS a cut, I think 🙂